Brilliant bursts of electromagnetic radiation from stars in the distant Universe have transformed our understanding of the Cosmos over the last two decades. One such burst, the Lorimer burst, was discovered in 2007, and it is the exemplar of the class we now know as fast radio bursts (FRBs). FRBs are characterised by millisecond-duration radio pulses appearing at random locations in the sky at cosmological distances, and are one of the most tantalising astrophysical phenomena of the last decade, whose origin remains a mystery. Presently, new FRBs (both repeating and non-repeating) continue to be steadily discovered with existing instrumentation. The better we can characterize the radio bursts and their associated multi-wavelength emission, the better our chances are of identifying the underlying emission mechanism. The full potential of FRBs will only be realized in the era of routine FRB detections and corresponding host galaxy identifications.
The dawn of cosmology & multi-messenger studies with fast radio bursts
IAU Symposium 369 (2 – 4 August 2022, Busan, South Korea)